Claire's Candles Mystery 02 - Black Cherry Betrayal Read online

  BLACK CHERRY BETRAYAL

  CLAIRE’S CANDLES - BOOK 2

  AGATHA FROST

  CONTENTS

  About This Book

  Newsletter Signup

  Also by Agatha Frost

  Introduction from Agatha Frost

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Afterword

  Newsletter Signup

  Also by Agatha Frost

  Published by Pink Tree Publishing Limited in 2020

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © Pink Tree Publishing Limited.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  For questions and comments about this book, please contact [email protected]

  www.pinktreepublishing.com

  www.agathafrost.com

  About This Book

  Released: June 9th 2020

  Words: 67,000

  Series: Book 2 - Claire’s Candles

  Language: British English

  Standalone: Yes

  Cliff-hanger: No

  Claire Harris is excited to get the keys to her candle shop finally. A foul smell coming from the attic, however, turns her excitement into a living nightmare. There, she finds the body of Jane Brindle, the owner of the tearoom, which had stood in the heart of the village for decades.

  Jane’s eventual retirement at eighty after years of fruitlessly hounding her daughter, Em, to take over the tearoom sent her to the south of France, or so everyone assumed. Jane never left Northash, but nobody is admitting to knowing what happened to her. Accusations fly everywhere, with many fingers pointing at free-spirited Em, and even some at Claire for daring to change the status quo.

  How did Jane end up dead in the locked attic after having supposedly left the village for a new life under the sun four months previously? How is Jane’s impossibly wealthy 102-year-old mother, Opal, involved? Someone close to Jane killed her, but can Claire find out who before her candle shop dreams crumble around her?

  WANT TO BE KEPT UP TO DATE WITH AGATHA FROST RELEASES? SIGN UP THE FREE NEWSLETTER BELOW!

  agathafrost.com

  You can also follow Agatha Frost across social media:

  Facebook

  Twitter

  Goodreads

  Instagram

  ALSO BY AGATHA FROST

  Claire’s Candles

  1. Vanilla Bean Vengeance

  2. Black Cherry Betrayal

  3. Coconut Milk Casualty

  Peridale Cafe

  Book 1-10 Boxset

  1. Pancakes and Corpses

  2. Lemonade and Lies

  3. Doughnuts and Deception

  4. Chocolate Cake and Chaos

  5. Shortbread and Sorrow

  6. Espresso and Evil

  7. Macarons and Mayhem

  8. Fruit Cake and Fear

  9. Birthday Cake and Bodies

  10. Gingerbread and Ghosts

  11.Cupcakes and Casualties

  12. Blueberry Muffins and Misfortune

  13. Ice Cream and Incidents

  14. Champagne and Catastrophes

  15. Wedding Cake and Woes

  16. Red Velvet and Revenge

  17. Vegetables and Vengeance

  18. Cheesecake and Confusion

  19. Brownies and Bloodshed

  20. Cocktails and Cowardice

  21. Profiteroles and Poison (NEW!)

  INTRODUCTION FROM AGATHA FROST

  Hello there! Welcome to another installment of my Claire’s Candles Cozy Mystery series! If this is a return visit to Northash, welcome back, and if this is your first visit, welcome! Since this is the second book in a series with overlapping subplots, I recommend reading the first book in the series, Vanilla Bean Vengeance, although the mystery in this story can be enjoyed as a standalone (and I never leave a mystery hanging).

  Another note: I am British, and Claire’s Candles is set in the North West of England. Depending on where you live, you may come across words/phrases you don’t understand, or might think are spelt wrong (we love throwing the ‘u’ into words like ‘colour). If that’s the case, I hope you enjoy experiencing something a little different, although I believe that anyone speaking any variety of English will be able enjoy this book, and isn’t reading all about learning?

  Please, enjoy! And when you’re finished, don’t forget to leave a review on Amazon (they help, a lot), and to check out my other series, Peridale Cafe, which has over 20 cozy adventures for you to enjoy!

  CHAPTER ONE

  C laire struggled to fasten the top button of her favourite jeans as she hurried down the stairs. She was sure they had fit before she put them in the washing basket last week.

  “Go on!” cried Janet, Claire’s mother, from the kitchen. “Shoo!”

  Janet scurried through the doorway, waving a red tea towel like a matador in reverse. Domino, one of Claire’s two cats, sprinted along the hallway in a flash of black and white; Janet and Domino repeated the same scene several times a day.

  The cardboard boxes piled on each step cut the available floorspace in half. Claire hobbled out of Domino’s way, her fingers still fiddling with the button intent on evading the hole on the other side of the waistband. Domino streaked past, forcing Claire’s legs into one of the cardboard boxes. The glass jars of the finished candles rattled inside.

  Jerking too far in the other direction to counteract her balance, Claire tripped down the final few stairs, catching herself with the bannister. She turned in time to see Domino dart through the crack in her bedroom door, no doubt to join Sid – the lazier of the cats – for a post-breakfast nap at the end of Claire’s bed, far from the tea-towel-toting menace in the kitchen.

  “That little pest is getting on my last nerve!” Janet exclaimed as she crunched crinkled tinfoil over the almost-stripped carcass from yesterday’s Sunday roast. “I just caught your cat gnawing on my chicken! I took it out of the fridge and looked away for a split second. You’d think it would be the fat one that’s greedy, but it’s that little skinny thing.”

  “Sid’s not fat,” Claire said, inhaling as much as she could and finally looping the button through the hole, “he’s fluffy.”

  Janet glanced down at the straining button before she put the chicken back in the fridge. Though Claire knew exactly what her mother was thinking, it didn’t bother her like it could have.

  Not today, at least.

  Claire was too excited.

  “Have you been boil-washing my clothes again, Mother?” Claire smiled wryly as she pulled her light denim shirt over the soft roll poking out over the top of her jeans. “I think they’ve shrunk.”

  Janet was naturally tall and slender, whereas Claire had her father’s short and round ‘apple-shaped’ figure. She also shared his love of cream cakes and chocol
ate and, if anyone were to ask Janet, his allergy to any physical exercise that might induce a sweat.

  “Are you sure it’s the jeans, dear?” Janet glanced over her glasses before returning to her magazine and morning cup of tea at the breakfast bar. “Double denim? Really, Claire?”

  Claire looked down at her outfit, picked for comfort during the day of decorating ahead and nothing more. As a teenager, she had expected her mother would one day stop commenting on her sense of fashion or lack thereof. At thirty-five, she was still waiting.

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “What’s right with it?” Janet flicked to the next page in her magazine, a women’s weekly filled with dramatic stories and salacious advice columns, and pursed her lips. She glanced over her shoulder, looking first at the cluttered island, and then at Claire. “How much longer until I get my kitchen back?”

  While the coffee machine chewed up the roasted beans on the first step towards providing Claire with her much-needed dose of early morning caffeine, she checked over the batch of twenty candles. After finishing them late last night, she’d left them out on the kitchen island to set and start curing. Though they awaited their labels, when she unscrewed the metal lid, there was no mistaking the scent.

  Rich wood and comforting musk made up the base notes, a heart of juicy orange and fresh lily padded out the middle, and sparkling top notes of zesty citrus finished it off. Inhaling deeply, Claire couldn’t have been happier with her take on ‘fresh linen’.

  “I’ll get them boxed up later.” Claire popped the lid on the candle and grabbed the finished espresso from the machine. “I thought you’d like having these ones around. They smell clean.”

  “I like things to be clean, Claire.” Janet glanced at the even bigger batch of vanilla candles curing on the table on the other side of the large, open-plan kitchen. “But I will admit, I appreciate the scent. It’s quite pleasing.”

  “Careful, Mother.” Claire slurped her scalding coffee and winked. “That was almost a compliment.”

  “I compliment you plenty.” Janet’s lips pursed even tighter before she sipped her tea, her eyes returning to her magazine. “It was only the other day I told you I liked your hair.”

  “If I recall, your exact words were ‘don’t let your hair grow long again’.”

  “The compliment was implied.”

  Claire laughed before tossing back the rest of the espresso. Her mother wasn’t what people would call a ‘warm’ woman, but neither was Claire’s maternal grandmother, Moreen, so the apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree. Thankfully, Moreen rarely visited.

  “I’ll be out of your hair before you know it.” Claire kissed her mother’s head as she headed to the sink to rinse the cup.

  “It’s not that I don’t like having you here, dear.” Janet flicked to another page in her mag. “I’m actually happy you’re not wasting your life in that candle factory anymore. I just never expected to have another adult living here . . . well, ever.”

  “I never expected to be back here either.” Claire peered through the net curtains at the grey clouds building over her father’s beautiful garden; until this morning, May had been glorious. “Believe me, I miss my independence as much as you miss your clear kitchen surfaces. Things will start to change the second I have the shop’s keys in hand.”

  “What time are you picking them up?”

  “Sally’s meeting me at the shop at nine.”

  Claire smiled as she stood at the sink and dried her espresso cup with a tea towel. She ducked lower and focussed on the distant hills behind Ian Baron’s farm. The Victorian chimney of Warton Candle Factory poked up above the treeline. Smoke hadn’t risen from it for decades, but it still loomed over the entire village of Northash. While Claire didn’t think her seventeen years there had been, in her mother’s words, a ‘waste of time’, she couldn’t pretend she wasn’t glad to be free of the place.

  “Don’t you think you should get your hair dried?” Janet slapped the magazine shut with one hand, her other holding up her wristwatch. “It’s already ten to.”

  Claire spun to look at the watch. The espresso cup slipped from the towel and shattered against the cream-coloured marble tiles.

  “For goodness sake, Claire!” Janet cried as she slid off the stool. “Born ten days late, and behind ever since! And don’t even get me started on your butterfingers. I don’t know where you get it from!” She pushed Claire out of the way and retrieved the dustpan and brush from the absurdly organised cupboard under the sink. “I’ll do it. You’ll only miss bits and force me to do it again. Go and get yourself together.”

  “And you wonder why I’ve never been good at cleaning.” Claire stepped over the smashed porcelain as her mother crouched to a squat. “You suck the dust out of the air before it lands, so nobody else gets the chance.”

  The back door opened. Alan, Claire’s father, tripped into the kitchen, his lame foot catching on the doorframe. Claire rushed over and grabbed the terracotta pot he held, which contained a tall, delicate, pink and white orchid. He smiled gratefully.

  “Is that your father tripping on the step again?” Janet called over the sound of the clattering porcelain. “Use your cane!”

  “Damn the cane.” Alan chuckled, but he winced as he straightened. “I’m quite alright. I daresay we’re going to get our first rain of the month, which I’m sure will please my grass.”

  “The doctor gave you that cane for a good reason,” Janet insisted, pouring the contents of the dustpan into the motion-activated bin. “Don’t change the subject.”

  “I learned from the best, my love,” Alan called over the counter. When Claire moved to return the orchid, he shook his head. “This is for you, little one.”

  “It’s beautiful.” Claire held it out and admired the pretty petals. “What’s the occasion?”

  “A shop-warming present.” Alan’s brows furrowed. “I haven’t got my days mixed up again, have I?”

  The mixture of confusion and potential embarrassment on her father’s face punched Claire in the gut. He was her favourite person in the world. Nerve damage caused during the removal of a small brain tumour a year ago made his left foot act inconsistently, but it also played with his memory. As a retired detective inspector, not being in top form irritated him beyond measure.

  “It’s today,” Janet said as she walked in from the hallway, already tugging on her polyester raincoat. “If we don’t set off right now, we will be late.”

  “You’re coming with me?”

  “We wouldn’t miss it, little one.” Alan hobbled past, scooping up the cane balanced against the counter as he went. His pace quickened as soon as he had it. “It’s a special day.”

  “I’m only getting the keys,” she reminded them. “There’s still a lot of work to do before I can open the shop.”

  “And when it does, it will have been a long time coming.” Janet fiddled with her watch while Alan slowly made his way to the coat-hooks in the hallway. “About time you got your life started.”

  Claire knew her mother wouldn’t be happy until she had a bursting bank account, a husband, and a gaggle of children at her feet. For now, at least, Claire was just delighted to finally be getting the keys to her dream shop.

  “What your mother means,” Alan said, eyeing up his wife with a soft seriousness only he could get away with, “is that we’re immensely proud of you.”

  “Claire, chop-chop!” Janet punctuated each ‘chop’ with a firm clap. “And obviously I’m pleased for you. That goes without saying.”

  Knowing better than to defy her mother when she was in a rush, Claire followed her father into the hallway, the orchid cradled in her arm. She slipped on her scruffiest trainers and grabbed one of her father’s raincoats; her mother’s would never have fit.

  “Can we take all this too?” Claire asked, nodding at the wallpaper steamer, plastic bag full of equipment, and paint she’d bought in preparation for redecorating. “Kill two birds with one stone.”<
br />
  “For goodness sake, Claire!” Janet huffed as she snatched up the plastic bag in one hand and the paint tub in the other. “One of these days you’ll get up early enough to do everything you need to do and have those forty-minute showers you insist on. Lord knows what you’re doing in there other than draining my hot water.”

  Claire leaned in and playfully whispered, “Hiding from you, Mother.”

  When the car was loaded, Claire fastened herself into the backseat. She rested the potted orchid in her lap, and a brown tag around the rim caught her attention. She turned it over; immediately, she recognised her father’s handwriting:

  MAY this orchid grow and prosper with your new business.

  CLAIRE MET her father’s eyes in the rear-view. He smiled and shot her a quick wink. As she mouthed ‘thank you’, her excitement for the journey ahead bubbled even higher.

  After a few minutes spent waiting for her, Janet finally rushed out of the cottage and climbed in, slamming the car door behind her.

  “You’re holding us up, Mother,” Claire joked.

  “I was running around the house turning off all the lights you left on despite it being morning.” Janet glared at her in the mirror as she dragged her seatbelt across her lap. “Nobody likes a sarcastic woman, dear.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” Alan said as he reversed out of their driveway using the view of the back of the car on the dashboard screen. “I think you and I have got along very well for all these years.”

  Janet pursed her lips, but she didn’t fire anything back. To most, Claire’s parents had a funny relationship, but to Claire, it made perfect sense. Her father’s wit and playful spirit softened Janet’s humourless, stiff ways. Forty-five years of marriage had deeply intertwined their roots. They loved each other too much to ever take the other too seriously. At thirty-five, Claire was in a shrinking group of acquaintances whose parents hadn’t divorced.

  Fine drizzle sprayed the windscreen as they trundled down the bumpy lane leading away from the cul-de-sac. The automatic wipers batted the droplets away as the sky darkened behind them. The sun had been up for hours, and yet its morning light barely broke through the clouds; it looked more like 9 pm than 9 am.